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Comment by barbazoo | Hacker News Reader

One talks about "espresso coffee" the other one just says "coffee", could that be significant?

One difference between espresso and coffee made with a paper filter is that there is more cholesterol in espresso. Espresso extracts more from the bean because it is done under pressure, and the paper filter collects some the cholesterol. There is some evidence of a connection between high cholesterol and Alzheimers, so you might expect espresso to be worse, but it doesn't seem that well understood. Maybe the cholesterols in coffee beans act differently.

Are you thinking of cafestol? Cafestol and kahweol are lipophilic terpenes that are normally lost in filtration. They are thought to be cardiotoxins that contribute to the premature deaths of elderly unfiltered coffee drinkers. [1]

[1] https://www.hcplive.com/view/filtered-unfiltered-coffee-cont...

Only animal and animal products have cholesterol. Or did you maybe mean the oils that are extracted? Cholesterol ≠ Lipids.

Some beans are roasted in butter.

Is this a joke?

My roast is done at 650 degrees, butter wouldn’t last 5 seconds.

I’ve seen people add butter to coffee though.

I got downvoted above, but it isn't a joke. Vietnamese coffee beans are often roasted in butter. Robusta beans aren't as common in the US, sadly. After living in Vietnam, it is my preferred bean now. I like the extra bitterness and higher caffeine content of it.

Buy some VN coffee, the beans are often shiny from the oil.

Feel free to upvote this post now that I've shown you something new. =)

https://www.google.com/search?q=butter+roasted+coffee

https://www.thecommonscafe.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-roastin...

https://nguyencoffeesupply.com/blogs/news/vietnamese-coffee-...

https://www.enjoyadaybreak.com/products/traditional-butter-r...

It's not a joke but completely besides the point. Most people aren't drinking butter-roasted coffee. Even if they did, the butter likely isn't adding any actual lipids to the final roast, just slightly altering the internal bean steam pressure, heat, and final water content. Any oils on the exterior would be vaporized at typical roasting temperatures. Also most heavily roasted beans will be shiny with oil within a few days of roasting, regardless of any added butter.

> Most people aren't drinking butter-roasted coffee.

I'm not sure how 'most people' is relevant to the discussion. Fact is that it is one of the largest GDP exports for Vietnam and 5th in the world [0]. Just because you don't drink it, doesn't mean millions of other people aren't drinking it.

"The main destination of Coffee exports from Vietnam are: Germany ($384M), United States ($257M), Italy ($230M), Japan ($186M), and Spain ($150M)."

If I take those beans "shiny with oil" (aka: butter), grind them up and make a cup of coffee with them (I personally go with an aeropress w/ steel mesh), then there is going to be oil (butter) in that coffee. In fact, I can see a slight oil (butter) sheen on the surface of the cup of coffee if I let it sit.

[0] https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/coffee/report...

I buy French or Italian roast beans which are Arabica and they are also oily. This does not mean they were roasted in butter.

I never suggested that all oily beans are roasted in butter.

Sure, but you're making the assumption that your beans are shiny because of butter, while we know all dark-roasted beans will be similarly shiny regardless. You're not providing any clear evidence that butter-roasted beans retain any oils from butter, and frankly I'm very skeptical of that being the case. Have you ever tried heating butter to 300C in a pan? (Do not actually try this, you will start an oil fire and create lots of smoke)

Since you're so tied up with not believing something:

  > Put beans roasted in butter next to beans not roasted in butter.

Spoiler: they look very different

Definitely not a joke. My friend from Singapore introduced me to butter-roasted beans. He enjoys western style roasts also but apparently craves a regular taste of home as well.

I’m not a fan. Nor was my grinder. Gummy residue.

Not a joke. It's fairly common in South East Asia and even has a name -- White Coffee.

That's mostly true, but not entirely true.

> There is a widespread belief among the public and even among chemists that plants do not contain cholesterol.

> This error is the result (in part) of the fact that plants generally contain only small quantities of cholesterol and that analytical methods for the detection of cholesterol in this range were not well developed until recently (1).

> Another reason has to do with the legalities of food labeling that allow small quantities of cholesterol in foods to be called zero (2).

> The fact is that cholesterol is widespread in the plant kingdom although other related sterols, such as β-sitosterol (henceforth referred to as sitosterol), generally occur in larger quantities.

> No current biochemistry text that we have examined provides an accurate account of cholesterol in plants.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed082p1791 [2005]

On an unrelated note, just how horrible is this https://sci-hub.se website that gets you most scientific publications for free????

There is a potent cholesterol raising compound, cafestol, in coffee that is removed when the it is filtered with paper.

I think you meant it has been shown to raise blood LDL cholesterol. But coffee itself doesn’t have cholesterol.

I wonder if this applies to coffee brewed with a moka pot

Yes. Espresso is extracted differently and lacks paper filtration so is known to be very different from "normal" drip coffee.

Could also just be confounding effects. Espresso machines tend to be expensive, as are cafés where people go to drink espresso. Did the study control for income?

That varies greatly depending on where you are in the world. In most of southern europe "a coffee" is an espresso, and outside of urban and/or tourist centers the normal price is less than 1€.

The study was done in Verona, where I suspect that espresso consumption isn't highly correlated with economic status.

I’m genuinely curious about the economics of the southern European coffee shop. The machines are quite expensive $20,000-$30,000+ (+- $5,000 - $10,000) and so for just 1€ plus they have to eat, potentially pay employees, etc. how viable are these shops?

On the other hand I think that the fact that such cafes exist and seem to work well speaks to walkability and proper transit as a cornerstone of entrepreneurship. In America you basically have to start a Starbucks drive through to get enough volume, or you have to charge $2.65 or something for a single because of a lack of volume.

Proper density (not Manhattan, moreso Amsterdam) and walkability seem to me to drive economic growth and encourage new businesses that don’t need to raise rounds of funding.

That would assume there is a correlation between Alzheimer's and income. In some quick googling of studies, there appears to be. However, with often differing results from US vs. European studies (and studying different things like education instead of income and vice versa, dementia vs. Alzheimers and vice versa, urban vs. macro and vice versa), there are hints that it is an accessibility of diagnosis issue.

We still don't know enough about Alzheimer's to have a definitive bullet list of healthy habits to stave it off. Sleep, exercise, dental health, all have some weak evidence behind it. It seems that Alzheimer's is still a more equal opportunity destroyer than heart disease or many cancers where there are plenty of evidence that you can mitigate risks with lifestyle changes.

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